Initial teacher training (ITT): accreditation

This guidance is for:

• organisations seeking ITT accreditation
• accredited providers of ITT who wish to remain accredited after September 2024

Eligibility criteria

You can only provide courses that lead to a recommendation for qualified teacher status (QTS) if you are accredited by the Department for Education (DfE).

This covers all the teacher training routes leading to QTS, namely:

• undergraduate
• postgraduate fee based
• postgraduate salaried (including postgraduate teaching apprenticeship)
• assessment only
• school direct (salaried)
• school direct (fee)

Organisations that deliver Early Years ITT must also be accredited to deliver Initial Teacher Training leading to the award of QTS and deliver a minimum of one programme leading to this award.

Accreditation process

Organisations who deliver ITT leading to qualified teacher status (QTS) must be accredited by DfE, and courses must continually meet the requirements set out in the DfE’s ITT criteria.

The government response to the ITT market review sets out new Quality Requirements which will become part of the ITT criteria from September 2024 (ITT criteria 2024 to 2025). This means that from September 2024, all ITT providers must deliver courses that incorporate the new Quality Requirements. The current ITT criteria will remain active until the end of August 2024.

All organisations who wish to begin courses that deliver ITT leading to QTS from academic year 2024 to 2025 must apply for accreditation against these new criteria, regardless of whether they currently hold accredited status.

There are 2 application rounds for organisations seeking to be awarded accreditation to deliver ITT from the 2024 to 2025 academic year.

• application round 1 opened on 1 December 2021 and closed on the 7 February 2022
• application round 2 opens in May 2022, after the outcomes of round 1 have been communicated to applicants. The closing date for round 2 is 27 June 2022

Organisations wishing to apply in round 2 will need to register on Jaggaer (DfE’s online application portal) if they are not already registered. Details on how to register for Jaggaer are set out in the How to Register on Jaggaer (PDF, 1.07 MB, 12 pages) document.

ITT criteria

Currently accredited providers must deliver training which meets the Secretary of State for Education’s ITT criteria. You need to ensure that all programmes of ITT comply with the criteria. The ITT criteria also includes the withdrawal of accreditation criteria. The existing ITT criteria will cease to be effective in academic year 2024 to 2025, when the ITT Criteria 2024/25 will come into effect.

For applicants seeking accreditation for courses starting in 2024, you must deliver training which meets the Secretary of State for Education’s ITT criteria 2024 to 2025. You need to ensure that all programmes of ITT comply with the criteria. The ITT criteria also includes the withdrawal of accreditation criteria. The ITT Criteria 2024 to 2025 is available in the document tab in Jaggaer once application round 2 is open.

You must ensure that all trainees are assessed against the Teachers’ Standards.

Ofsted will inspect you in accordance with the Ofsted initial teacher education framework.

Contact

For queries concerning applying for accreditation from academic year 2024 to 2025, or your application for accreditation, please submit through the messaging function in Jaggaer.

If you’re a potential candidate, wishing to gain qualified teacher status (QTS), please visit Ways to train.